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Christian Legislative Prayers and Christian Nationalism Caroline Mala Corbin University of Miami School of Law, [email protected]

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Christian Legislative Prayers and Christian Nationalism Caroline Mala Corbin University of Miami School of Law, Ccorbin@Law.Miami.Edu Washington and Lee Law Review Volume 76 | Issue 1 Article 10 5-24-2019 Christian Legislative Prayers and Christian Nationalism Caroline Mala Corbin University of Miami School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, and the First Amendment Commons Recommended Citation Caroline Mala Corbin, Christian Legislative Prayers and Christian Nationalism, 76 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 453 (2019), https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol76/iss1/10 This Student Notes Colloquium is brought to you for free and open access by the Washington and Lee Law Review at Washington & Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington and Lee Law Review by an authorized editor of Washington & Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Christian Legislative Prayers and Christian Nationalism Caroline Mala Corbin* Table of Contents I. Introduction ...................................................................... 453 II. Christian Nationalism ..................................................... 458 III. Christian Prayers Reflect and Exacerbate Christian Nationalism ..................................................... 463 A. Christian Legislative Prayers as Embodying Nationalism ................................................................ 464 B. Christian Legislative Prayers Promote Christian Nationalism ............................................... 467 IV. Solution: End Legislative Prayers................................... 475 V. Conclusion ........................................................................ 482 I. Introduction Asked whether the United States is a Christian nation, about half of Americans surveyed in 2014 answered yes.1 Fifty-five percent from that same survey also responded either that “America is a Christian nation and that is a good thing” or that “[America] Copyright © 2019 by Caroline Mala Corbin * Professor of Law, University of Miami School of Law; B.A., Harvard University; J.D. Columbia Law School. I would like to thank Mary Nobles Hancock asking me to respond to her award-winning Note, God Save the United States and this Honorable County Board of Commissioners: Lund, Bormuth, and the Fight over Legislative Prayer. I would also like to thank my excellent research assistants Michael Habib and Kaitlyn Mannis, as well as the crack editing staff on the Washington and Lee Law Review. 1. University of Minnesota—The American Mosaic Project, Boundaries in the AMERICAN MOSAIC: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS REPORT 8 (2014), https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1_-5jcLVxRdZ3ZzMVVZSU9ZOE0/view. 453 454 76 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 453 (2019) is not a Christian nation and that is a bad thing.”2 Thus, the conclusion that America is a Christian nation is not descriptive but an aspirational, reflecting a “cultural preference for Christianity.”3 Not surprisingly, over half of Americans believe that being Christian is either “very” or “somewhat” important to being a good American.4 Support for a Christian America is a core component of Christian nationalism, which “envision[s] the boundaries of the religious and political communities to be as coterminous as possible.”5 That is, Christian nationalism conceives of religion and government as wholly overlapping rather than separate spheres.6 It also means the conflation of religious identity and national identity. In sum, Christian nationalism is the belief that the United States “has been and always should be distinctly Christian in its identity, values, sacred symbols and policies.”7 The proliferation of Christian legislative prayers at local governments around the country both reflects and strengthens 2. Penny Edgell, An Agenda for Research on American Religion in Light of the 2016 Election, 78 Soc. Relig.: Q. Rev. 1, 6 (2017). 3. Id.; see also Jeremy Brook Straughn & Scott L. Feld, America as a ‘Christian Nation’? Understanding Religious Boundaries of National Identity in the United States, 71 Soc. Relig. 280, 281 (2010) (“Rather than merely describing the demographic status quo, statements like ‘America is a Christian nation’ represents a discursive practice that seeks to align the boundaries of authentic national belonging with adherence to the dominant religious faith.”). 4. Edgell, supra note 2, at 6; see also Bruce Stokes, WHAT IT TAKES TO TRULY BE “ONE OF US”, PEW RES. CTR. 1, 6 (2017), http://www.pewglobal.org/wp- content/uploads/sites/2/2017/02/Pew-Research-Center-National-Identity-Report- FINAL-February-1-2017.pdf (asking about whether being Christian is important to being “truly American,” 32% responded it was “very important” and 19% “somewhat important”); Public Religion Research Institute, PRRI/RNS June 2015 Survey 4 (2015), https://www.prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/June- PRRI-RNS-Religion-News-Survey-Topline.pdf (reporting that in response to the same question, 33% answered being Christian was “very important” to being “truly American” and 20% answered “somewhat important”). 5. Samuel L. Perry & Andrew L. Whitehead, Christian Nationalism and White Racial Boundaries: Examines Whites’ Opposition to Interracial Marriage, 38 ETHNIC & RACIAL STUD. 1671, 1672 (2015). 6. See Joshua Davis, Enforcing Christian Nationalism: Examining the Link Between Group Identity and Punitive Attitudes in the United States, 57 J. FOR SCI. STUD. RELIGION 300, 301 (2018) (“This desire for a government a government that reflects not only the American interest, but the Christian interest as well, lead many to form an ideology of may be called, ‘Christian nationalism.’”). 7. Perry & Whitehead, supra note 5, at 1672. CHRISTIAN LEGISLATIVE PRAYERS 455 Christian nationalism. “Legislative prayers” is the term used for the opening prayers that start many sessions of local government. In addition to a call to order, or a recitation of the national pledge, local political gatherings from state legislatures to town commissions to school boards begin their meetings with a prayer to God. At many, outside clergy are invited to conduct these brief acts of worship. At others, the lawmakers themselves give the prayer. With some frequency, these prayers have been overwhelmingly or exclusively Christian, leading to Establishment Clause challenges. The Establishment Clause, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, bars the government from favoring some religions over others.8 The Supreme Court has addressed the constitutionality of legislative prayers two times, upholding them each time. In Marsh v. Chambers,9 decided in 1983, the Supreme Court rejected an Establishment Clause challenge to Nebraska’s policy of hiring a chaplain to open its legislative sessions with a nondenominational prayer. The Supreme Court held that legislative prayers do not violate the Establishment Clause because the original Congress did not find them unconstitutional10—the same Congress that approved the First Amendment also appointed its own legislative chaplain.11 In Town of Greece v. Galloway,12 decided in 2014, the 8. See, e.g., Bd. of Educ. v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687, 703 (1994) (“[A] principle at the heart of the Establishment Clause [is] that government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion.”); County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573, 605 (1989) (“Whatever else the Establishment Clause may mean . it certainly means at the very least that government may not demonstrate a preference for one particular sect or creed . .”); Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228, 246 (1982) (“The clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another.”). 9. Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983). 10. See id. at 790 It can hardly be thought that in the same week Members of the First Congress voted to appoint and to pay a Chaplain for each House and also voted to approve the draft of the First Amendment for submission to the States, they intended the Establishment Clause of the Amendment to forbid what they had just declared acceptable. 11. See id. at 788 (“On September 25, 1789, three days after Congress authorized the appointment of paid chaplains, final agreement was reached on the language of the Bill of Rights.”). 12. 572 U.S. 565 (2014). 456 76 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 453 (2019) Supreme Court addressed a prayer practice at town board meetings where the vast majority of prayers given by invited local clergy were explicitly Christian rather than nonsectarian.13 Nevertheless, the Court considered them part of the legislative prayer tradition long allowed in the United States.14 After all, the Court argued, the predominantly Christian prayers were merely the result of a predominantly Christian town.15 The Town of Greece Court did not conclude that Christian legislative prayers could never violate the Establishment Clause. First, the Court suggested that their constitutionality might be in question had their overwhelmingly Christian nature been the result of a discriminatory intent to exclude non-Christians.16 Second, the Court drew the line at “prayers that over time denigrate, proselytize, or betray an impermissible government purpose.”17 Third, the prayers would be unconstitutionally coercive 13. See id. at 573 (acknowledging that “most of the prayer givers were Christian”); see also id. at 628 (Kagan, J., dissenting) (“[I]n the 18 months before the record closed, 85% included those references [to ‘Jesus,’ ‘Christ,’ ‘Your Son,’ or ‘the Holy Spirit’].
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